This longitudinal study examines a conceptual model linking maltreatment and children's emotional behavior to behavior problems. It expands the current grant by examining how maltreatment affects children's emotions and cognitions and how these emotions and cognitions impact on behavior outcomes. Differences in children's shame, pride, and negative self-blaming cognitions about their performance following failure and success are behaviors likely to be affected by maltreatment. These emotions and self-blaming cognitions are hypothesized to serve as mediators between maltreatment and behavior problems. Moreover, because of continuing risk of parental maltreatment and punishment, risk factors are also of concern. The goals of the study are to examine children's emotional responses and self-evaluations as a function of maltreated status and continued risk as well as to concurrent and subsequent behavior problems, including low self-esteem, depression, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors. A sample of 250 children and their mothers, 150 of whom will have a history of either physical abuse (75) or neglect (75) will be followed over four years. Nonmaltreated children will have no history of maltreatment and will be matched to the maltreated group on major demographic variables. The children will be evenly divided into two age groups, a younger and an older cohort. The younger cohort will be 4-years old at the time of enrollment, the older cohort, 6-years old. Both groups will be followed for four years. Parenting risk, including measures of continued maltreatment, negative parental interactions, and attitudes toward physical punishment will be assessed. Children's emotional behavior and self-blaming cognitions on experimenter-controlled tasks will be obtained. In addition, mothers and children will be observed in other situations as they interact around the child's completing a difficult task. The quality of maternal behavior will be quantified and combined with other measures of parenting risk. Results from this project will provide information important in identifying those maltreated children at greatest risk and assist in targeting intervention efforts toward changing children's emerging emotion-attribution styles and those parenting patterns that promote maladaptive behavior.